


Father's Day 2012

by rabidsamfan



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Kidfic, Nanny John universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:09:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/pseuds/rabidsamfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fourteen year old Mycroft and six year old Sherlock take a walk in the country on Father's day.  Falls in the Nanny John universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father's Day 2012

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emungere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/gifts).



> References the blog posts for June of 2012 
> 
> http://boringlifeofjohnwatson.blogspot.com/  
> http://interestingmurders.blogspot.com/

_That last day Daddy said goodbye the same way as always. "You're in charge until I get back," he told Mycroft, just like always, and then promised he'd be home before too long. And Mycroft had said yes, and hadn't looked up from his book when Daddy scruffled his hair, because it was the same as always, so he'd missed his chance to see Daddy's eyes one last time in Daddy's face. Mycroft had stayed in charge for a long time, but it hadn't made any difference. Not in the one way that mattered._

Sherlock had their father's eyes. The shape had been the same even when he was a baby, but now that he was growing out of the last of his babyfat, even the color was becoming the same, grey with touches of silver that flashed when he was interested in something. And given that Sherlock was interested in everything, the resemblance was impossible to miss.

Mycroft stopped to watch as his brother crouched down to examine yet another beetle, wondering if he’d been as grubby when it was his turn to be the small one instead of the tall one. Daddy had always been patient, always willing to wait for Mycroft to make his observations and reach his conclusions. Sometimes he’d even crouched down too, and there was one morning, still close in memory, when he’d sat down right on the path, getting his trousers all dirty while he held Mycroft and explained gently just what would happen to the dead bird they’d found. Grubs and flies and bacteria, all breaking apart the tissues and bones, putting the nutrients back into the soil to become a tree, or an apple for someone to eat. Or a mushroom, Mycroft had protested, since there weren’t any apples anywhere nearby, but there were mushrooms, and Daddy had even known which ones were the edible kind. Mummy had been so surprised when Mycroft told her they were really eating birds. And then Daddy had sung a song about Ilkley Moor that made her laugh, and they had never had mushrooms again without someone mentioning birds.

The first year after Daddy died Mycroft had never been able to look out the window of Grandmere’s house at Dartmoor without wondering how long it would take for people to become mushrooms, or worms, or ducks. Hudson had brought in a brace of ducks, once, from a hunt on the moor, because Grandmere wanted to celebrate Mummy bringing Sherlock from the hospital with her favorite foods, and everyone had thought that Mycroft refused to eat dinner that night because of Sherlock, but it had been because of the ducks and eating Daddy, which even Mycroft knew was wrong and made no sense, but he still hadn't been able to eat. Or explain.

"Do you remember the psychologists?" Mycroft asked. "And the nannies? All the ones who came before John?" There had been so many of them, and all of them wrong in different ways, and none of them stayed very long, especially after Grandmere died.

Sherlock looked up at him, squinting a little because of the sun on his face. "You know I do."

"Even Catarina?" Catarina had been Mycroft's nanny from the time he was five until he was almost ten. He'd gone to boarding school then, and she'd stayed at Baskerville Hall for a while, fighting with Sherlock's nurse, until Grandmere had put her foot down and sent both of them away. Mycroft didn't know what had become of the nurse, but Catarina had gone back to the little village near Lisbon where she was born and fallen in love with a fisherman.

"I remember her singing," Sherlock answered, standing up and smearing more dirt onto his shirt before reaching to take Mycroft's hand and tugging him back into motion along the path. "Mummy's not going to send John away," he said, after a moment, when he'd figured out what question he thought Mycroft was really asking.

"But he's limping again." It was a good guess, but Sherlock wasn't considering all the data, even though he'd had more chances to observe than Mycroft did.

"He's been limping since Scotland," Sherlock said. "And he rubs his leg a lot when he's thinking. But not very much. Not like he was before. He doesn't need a cane or a stick to walk with."

"Has he been having nightmares?" Sherlock didn't answer straight away. He glanced over his shoulder, to where John and Lestrade were meandering along, so close together that they had to put their arms behind each other's backs. The little catch in John's pace wasn't as obvious now, not with Lestrade there, but if you knew how he walked when everything was right you could see the difference.

"Not screaming ones. But..." Mycroft could almost hear his little brother thinking. "He's been quiet. Especially in the mornings. And he's had the line between his eyebrows a lot." Sherlock drew a small vertical line over his own nose with one finger in illustration. "You've got one too, now."

Mycroft resisted the temptation to touch his own forehead, but he knew what Sherlock meant. "It's a worry line."

"What are you worried about?"

"Mummy." Mycroft said. "And John," he added quickly, when Sherlock's face went a little too still, waiting for bad news. "And what Mummy might do about John limping."

Now Sherlock had a worry line. "I don't understand," he grumbled reluctantly.

Mycroft knew he had to explain, now that he'd started. "It's just that Mummy makes mistakes, but she doesn't make the same mistake twice. And she made a big mistake with Hudson, not paying attention when he got bored with being a groundskeeper and changed. And if she thinks that John is bored with being a nanny – if she thinks that he's changing – she might make a different kind of mistake."

"You mean she'd send him away." Sherlock scowled. "If she did, I'd find him. I'd run away and find him. He told me not to run away from him any more, but if I was running away to him that would be all right, wouldn't it?"

"I think it would be a better plan to keep him from getting bored," Mycroft said. "Don't you? Forestall the entire issue."

"But he's not bored," Sherlock protested.

"Dissatisfied, then. Thinking that he ought to be doing something better. Something that uses the things he's good at."

"He works at the clinic nearly every day," Sherlock said. "So you don't mean doctoring. You mean like being in the army. Being in a war. You think he wants to go back to Afghanistan, but he doesn't. He told The Internet so."

Mycroft wanted to smile, because he always found it funny when Sherlock talked about the people who commented on John and Lestrade's blogs as if they were the entire internet, but that would change the topic, and he needed to think this through. One of the best things about talking to Sherlock was that he was smart enough to tell when you'd misphrased your hypothesis. "I think he thinks he ought to be using all of his training. I overheard his father ask him if he weren't a 'wee bit overqualified to be chasing after small lads'."

"Hmph," Sherlock snorted. "Was that before or after the security team set up in the car park across the way?"

"Before," Mycroft admitted. "Which might have changed Mr. Watson's mind, but I'm not sure that the damage hadn't already been done."

Sherlock scuffed his feet in the dirt of the path for a few yards, although his mind wasn't on it or he'd have stopped to look at the snail. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't think John could ever turn into someone like Hudson, especially not with Lestrade..." Sherlock stopped, his face suddenly incandescent. "Why can't we ask Lestrade? He can talk to Mummy, and explain. He's really good at explaining."

"Because we don't have enough data yet," Mycroft said. "That's why I'm talking to you. So that when I'm at school you're in charge of paying attention to what kind of things happen when John is limping or not limping, and document it."

"Like an experiment?"

"An observational analysis," Mycroft said. "I can help when I'm home, but it will mostly have to be you."

Sherlock considered the proprosition, absently wobbling his loosest tooth with his tongue in thought before nodding. "I can do that," he said. "We'll use my red notebook with the frog sticker on the cover. It has lots of empty pages left."

They walked on, not needing to talk now, but as they got to where they could see the car Sherlock squeezed a little harder on Mycroft's hand. "Everyone leaves, you know. Even when you don't want them to," he confided in a low voice.

"Yes." Mycroft thought of Daddy, and that last day, when everything still seemed like it would be the same forever. "Even when they promise they'll come back."

"It isn't fair."

"No. It isn't."

"Will you promise to always come back? I mean, if you can? If you're not dead?"

Mycroft looked down into his brother's eyes, so like his father's it hurt sometimes to see. "If I can. If I'm not dead. I promise. Always."


End file.
